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From: Ross Clark <benlizro@ihug.co.nz>
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Subject: Thomas de Quincey died (8/12/1859)
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2024 21:21:29 +1300
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English writer, essayist and literary critic, best known for 
_Confessions of an English Opium-Eater_ (1821)

Crystal quotes this from an essay called "Pronunciation", not published 
in De Quincey's lifetime:

"I observe to the reader that, although it is thoroughly impossible to 
give him a guide upon so vast a wilderness as the total area of our 
English language, for, if I must teach him how to pronounce, and upon 
what learned grounds to pronounce, 40,000 words, and if polemically I 
must teach him how to dispose of 40,000 objections that have been raised 
(or that may be raised) against these pronunciations, then I should 
require at the least 40,000 lives (which is quite out of the question, 
for a cat has but nine)—seeing and allowing for all this, I may yet 
offer him some guidance as to his guide. One sole rule, if he will 
attend to it, governs in a paramount sense the total possibilities and 
compass of pronunciation. A very famous line of Horace states it. What 
line? What is the supreme law in every language for correct 
pronunciation no less than for idiomatic propriety?

'Usus, quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi:'

usage, the established practice, subject to which is all law and normal 
standard of correct speaking. Now, in what way does such a rule 
interfere with the ordinary prejudice on this subject? The popular error 
is that, in pronunciation, as in other things, there is an abstract 
right and a wrong. The difficulty, it is supposed, lies in ascertaining 
this right and wrong. But by collation of arguments, by learned 
investigation, and interchange of pros and cons, it is fancied that 
ultimately the exact truth of each separate case might be extracted. 
Now, in that preconception lies the capital blunder incident to the 
question. There is no right, there is no wrong, except what the 
prevailing usage creates. The usage, the existing custom, that is the 
law: and from that law there is no appeal whatever, nor demur that is 
sustainable for a moment."

The whole here:

https://clyx.com/books/de_quincey/the_posthumous_works_of_thomas_de_quincey_vol._2/xiv_pronunciation.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_De_Quincey