Note 86 — ACT III., SCENE I.
Reading edition
Jane has been too successful in her play on the names and qualities of the flowers to have chosen this at random; and I am inclined to think the following extract from the "Winter's Tale" will serve to elucidate her meaning—
"The fairest flowers o' the season Are our carnations and streak'd gilliflowers. Which some call nature's bastards: of that kind Our rustic garden's barren; and I care not To get slips of them. Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Do you neglect them? Per. For I have heard it said, There is an art, which, in their piedness, shares With great creating nature."
"This art," says Steevens, in a note on that passage, "is pretended to be taught at the end of some of the old books that treat of cookery." As I understand the passage then, Jane means to say, I have such good qualities and beauty as nature has given, but none that are produced by art. If the passage be thus understood, the opposition of the rose and the gilliflower is complete. If the reader is not satisfied with this conjecture, I will further suggest that gill-flirt was then a well-known term for a wanton; and Steevens has informed us that gilly'vors (the vulgar way of calling gilly-flowers) is still in use in Sussex to denote a harlot. Jane has spoken more than once of her honesty, and here may be the allusion.