We prove some new upper and lower bounds for the first Dirichlet eigenvalue of triangles and quadrilaterals. In particular, we improve Pólya and Szegö's [ Annals of Mathematical Studies 27 (1951)] lower bound for quadrilaterals and extend Hersch's [ Z. Angew. Math. Phys. 17 (1966) 457-460] upper bound for parallelograms to general quadrilaterals.