Professor Bredvold's view of Dryden as a philosophic sceptic in the general tradition of Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, and Montaigne, or as a “fideist” after the fashion of certain Roman Catholic apologists, continues to be the generally accepted one. Samuel Monk, in summing up the direction that Dryden studies have taken, says: “Dryden's naturally sceptical temper found support in the various scepticisms of Montaigne, of the Royal Society, and of Catholic apologetics.” It is this scepticism, so the story goes, which drove Dryden to the shelter of the Roman Catholic Church.