false pretension

Certainly our Germany is a strange land; producing great people, but not appreciating them; possessing many fine singers and intellectual artists, but none sufficiently modest and subordinate to render their parts faithfully, and without false pretension.

Dissimulā′tion, the act of dissembling: a hiding under a false appearance: false pretension: hypocrisy; Dissimulā′tor.

If the master's scholars mostly turn out ill it may be inferred that he is a bad master; and if the master be self-seeking at bottom, whatever disguise he may put on, the evil will come to light: selfishness always generates counter-selfishness, and false pretension detected in one case may lead a young man into general mistrust.

The members of a theatrical company being limited in number, it was often necessary for the impersonators of kings and heroes to represent very inferior characters in the same play, a circumstance to the advantage of the dramatist, who could thus obtain capable exponents for the parts of messengers and attendants, and was able, therefore, to “write up” these parts without fear of the author’s lines being mangled by incompetence, or made ridiculous by false pretension.

The chalifate, set up in the false pretension of succeeding a man whose whole claim to rule was founded on a falsehood, had become the most terrible despotism which human history had witnessed.