Antoinette, a famous female preacher and pretended prophetess, was born at Lisle in 1616. At her birth she was so deformed that it was debated some days in the family whether it would not be proper to stifle her as a monster; but her deformity diminishing, she was spared, and afterwards attained such a medium of beauty, or rather so far diminished in ugliness, that she had her admirers. From her childhood to her old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She set up as a reformer, and published a great number of books filled with very singular notions; the most remarkable of which are entitled The Light of the World, and The Testimony of Truth. She was naturally an enemy to reason and common sense, which she maintained ought to give place to the illumination of diving faith; and asserted, that whenever any one was born again by embracing her doctrine, she felt the pains and throes of a woman in labour. Of her pretended visions and revelations there have been published many disgusting instances, which we shall not shock the reader by repeating. Besides these and other extravagancies, she had some very repulsive qualities. Her temper was morose and peevish, her cupidity excessive, her character as a woman questionable, and her habits eccentric and unfeminine. She dressed like a hermit, and travelled through France, Holland, England, and Scotland, where she made a strong party of some thousand sectarians, known by the name of Bourignonists. She died at Franeker in October 1680. Her principal works are, 1. Treatise on the Blindness of Men, and the Light born in Darkness; 2. The New Heaven and the Reign of Antichrist; 3. A Treatise on the Solid Virtue; 4. The Renewal of the Evangelical Spirit; and, 5. Innocence recognised and Truth discovered, addressed to the celebrated Arnauld. This strange woman pretended that the true church was extinct, and that God had commissioned her to re-establish it. The object of her works was to guide her followers to an imaginary perfection, and to make them renounce all forms in favour of an interior and mystic worship. Though possessed of a considerable fortune, to which she had succeeded, she never gave any thing to the poor, on the pretence that they might make a bad use of her liberality, and that the benefits we have received from God ought only to be employed for his greatest glory; a strange perversion of the charitable spirit of the gospel. Yet by an absurd though not unfrequent inconsequence of conduct, this woman bequeathed all her property to an hospital. Her mind was lively and acute, her style easy, and her eloquence seductive; endowments which enabled her to make, at different times, a considerable number of proselytes.

BORNE, a market-town of the hundred of Aveland, in the county of Lincoln, 97 miles from London. It is situated in a pleasant country, very productive in corn and cattle; and is at the head of a fine stream, which runs to Spalding. The market is held on Saturday. The inhabitants amounted in 1801 to 1474, in 1811 to 1591, and in 1821 to 2029.