While we have felt it our duty to write the last paragraph, we cheerfully record our admiration of Sir Robert Peel's great talents, of his moral integrity, of his very exemplary private life, and, we believe, of his firm attachment to his country and its institutions. He is another memorable instance of what the children of democracy may become in England, with adequate talents and exertions. Sir R. Peel owed much to his wealth, to his associates, and to his early opinions. But far beyond the factitious influences derivable from such sources, he had great elements in himself. When his heart and mind received free permission from his policy to display themselves, they were of the highest order. Such a man is not easily made: of his loss we are only at present very imperfectly able to appreciate the consequences, one of which, we fear will be a mischievous re-formation of the Protectionist party, and, if we read the auspices aright, his death will not improve the Ministerial Whigs. The motion on Wednesday night, in the House of Commons, not to proceed with public business that evening, in honor of the memory of Sir R. Peel, was as becoming to the House itself as it was to its mover, Mr. Hume. It is a poor recompense to a bereaved family, we are aware; but it is such a tribute as has not always been granted to even greater men, and to some of the blood royal. In due time the public feeling will doubtless imbody itself in more tangible and permanent forms; and when that occurs, it will not be the least of the monumental honors of the deceased, that the gratitude of the widow, the orphan, the neglected genius, and suffering worth, will lead many to shed their tears on the bronze or marble effigies of him whose like England will not easily see again. [From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.] SPONGES. About three centuries and a half before the Christian era, the question, Are sponges animal or vegetable? was proposed by Aristotle, who, unable himself to solve the difficulty, was contented, in the true spirit of a lover of nature, with carefully recording the results of his accurate observations, and advancing his opinion rather in the form of an inquiry than of an allegation. Upward of two thousand years rolled away ere this question was satisfactorily answered. Nay, we believe that the vegetable theory has, even at the present time, its advocates; while some are still disposed to consider that the sponge is at one period of its existence a vegetable, and at another an animal.