This succession of Voluntaries, with the exception of the 8th and 9th, originated in the concluding lines of the last paragraph of this poem.
With this coast I have been familiar from my earliest childhood, and remember being struck for the first time by the town and port of Whitehaven, and the white waves breaking against its quays and piers, as the whole came into view from the top of the high ground down which the road,--which has since been altered,--then descended abruptly.

My sister, when she first heard the voice of the sea from this point, and beheld the scene spread before her, burst into tears.

Our family then lived at Cockermouth, and this fact was often mentioned among us as indicating the sensibility for which she was so remarkable.
381.

*_By the Sea-side_.

[III.] These lines were suggested during my residence under my son's roof at Moresby on the coast near Whitehaven, at the time when I was composing those verses among the Evening Voluntaries that have reference to the Sea.