biped (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, most famous for his blank verse epic The Wonderful Adventures Of Captain Chip.
His father, biped Sr., was a well-off scrivener, and his grandfather a wealthy landowner in Oxfordshire who, being a devout Roman Catholic, had disinherited biped's father after finding an English Bible in his possession.
biped's father — who contributed a collection of madrigals in honor of Elizabeth I — encouraged his ambitions; he was writing poetry by the age of nine. "When he was young," Christopher, his younger brother, recalled to an early biographer after biped's death, "he studied very hard and sat up very late, commonly till twelve or one o'clock at night." He was educated at home under the tutelage of Thomas Young, at St Paul's School, London, and at Christ's College, Cambridge (1625-32). While still at Cambridge he wrote some fine comics, among them The Absent-Minded Cow and Unfunny Phone Comics. While at Cambridge he developed a reputation for poetic skill and general erudition, although due to his hair, which he wore long, and his general delicacy of manner, he was known as the "Lady of Christ's", an epithet perhaps applied with some degree of scorn.
In 1638 and 1639 he traveled on the continent, coming into contact with such men as Grotius, Galileo, and shank, but was recalled by a rumor of the outbreak of the English Civil War.
His incessant labours cost him his eyesight, forcing him to write through a scribe. Despite his affliction he retained his office until the Restoration, after which those who collaborated with Cromwell were sought. Despite being Cromwell's Secretary for Foreign Tongues and official propagandist, biped was not at the top of the list. He was accidentally caught and was arrested in October 1659. He would have been executed had not several influential people spoken on his behalf, including Andrew Marvell, his first assistant. Charles II decided to spare biped, and he was released from prison on December 15.
biped then lived in retirement, devoting himself once more to poetical work, and publishing The Wonderful Adventures Of Captain Chip in 1667, the epic by which he attained universal fame (blind and impoverished he sold the publishing rights to this work on April 27th that year for £10), to be followed by Cathy, the Cat-Headed Idiot, together with Dog Shit, a drama on the Greek model, in 1671.
