From the preface to the Fables. The word pretend is here used in its old sense, ' to hold out with a threatening purpose ,' a sense in which the verb is very rare, though the noun is more common. Thus:—
'Against the undivulged pretence I fight
Of treasonous malice.' Macbeth, ii. 3.
It would be perhaps hard to find another instance of this same verb used actively but in a metaphorical sense. We have it in Spenser, Faerie Queen , vi. 2, 19 —
'His target always over her pretended ';
but the meaning is there actual, not metaphorical.