"Jack of all trades, master of none" - Where does this come from?

This phrase often defines generalists - I'm one of them - and is also used for those that "do it all" or "know it all". But where does it come from? 

It comes from Robert Greene's 1592 pamphlet Greenes, Groats-worth of Witte, bought with a million of Repentance, a text that says in the first page: "Written before his death and published at his dyeing request." 

Page of the old book "Greenes, Groats-worth of Witte".
From the edition of 1629. 

But of course, the line about "jack of all trades" was written very different thanks to the literary trends of the Elizabethan era. It goes like this:

...he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you, and being an absolute Johannes factotum is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country.

" Johannes factotum" - literally, "John Do‐everything" - is about a person that does many things or has many duties. 

The most interesting part is that this "jack of all trades" thing was a veiled attack against William Shakespeare - or so it's said. 

Reading the original is pretty hard but you can try.  

Pages of text from "Greenes, Groats-worth of Witte".

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