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

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