cramp one's style (1781)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

OED2 has "to cramp one's style" from 1917.

1781 Horace Walpole _Correspondence_ II (1851) 148 The shackles of
translation have neither cramped your style, nor rendered it obscure.
http://books.google.com/books?id=2D8JAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA148

Also in _Letters_ VII (1891) 510:
http://books.google.com/books?id=eBMlAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA510


--Ben Zimmer

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